


This Isn't a Heist

by momebie (katilara)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3971362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katilara/pseuds/momebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan only says it to piss off Declan. He doesn't take into account what it will do to everyone else. (Or, that one where Adam and Ronan are fake dating.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Isn't a Heist

**Author's Note:**

> A while back I answered a [meme question](http://charmingpplincardigans.tumblr.com/post/116441420369/pretending-to-date-au-for-adam-ronan-because-there) about what kind of story I'd write with the fake dating trope. I'm worried this doesn't live up to the possible whimsy of the initial response, but this is where we are now.

For once, Ronan is the one in DC with Gansey and not Adam. It’s so strange, the hungry thing that gnaws at Ronan whenever Gansey leaves for home without him. When he lets himself think about it he thinks that it might be because he resents the fact that _he_ isn’t Gansey’s home. That whatever sort of world they’ve built at Monmouth is only temporary. Or maybe it’s the fact that Gansey has a home to return to that’s just like the one he left, a touchstone of history that Ronan feels untethered without.

Either way he knows full and well that he doesn’t actually want to go along to DC. He doesn’t like DC or fancy political parties or being within fifty miles of Declan, all opinions which are reasserting themselves quite vividly now as he and Gansey sit on the Gansey back patio across an iron table from Helen and Declan and politely pretend that everything is fine. Ronan loves Gansey in the way he should love Declan, but he might kill him for this traitorous trick. 

Helen is leaning back in her chair, balancing her glass of iced tea on her knee. She has her arm stretched across the back of Declan’s chair and Ronan has always thought Helen was smart, but he’s seriously reconsidering. Declan looks at her with bright, clear eyes, which is interesting. He’s never looked at any of his other girlfriends that way, only Matthew and their mother and Ronan himself at one time. Ronan knows Helen isn’t a dream thing, but maybe for Declan she feels like a created thing, something that fits too perfectly into his life. Ronan can understand that, maybe. He certainly has a person of his own who feels too good to be true. 

“So, Ronan,” Declan says, and Ronan tenses. He watches the way Declan’s eyes go dimmer as he looks from Helen to him and he wonders if either of the Ganseys will catch it. Probably not. “Are you seeing anyone? Or do you have time around all of the trouble you get into?”

Gansey clears his throat politely. “Helen, did I tell you about the tapestry Malory found? It’s quite fascinating. The figures look just li—”

“Actually,” Ronan says, cutting Gansey off. He looks Declan straight in the eye and doesn’t blink. “I am.” 

As soon as the words are out he doesn’t know why he’s said them, doesn’t know how he’s going to follow them up. He just can’t stand Declan’s smug tone, like he’s figured something out that Ronan hasn’t. As if the year between them makes him somehow better at all of the banalities of living. Ronan frantically tries to send telepathic messages to Gansey not to say anything contrary.

Gansey scrapes his fork loudly across his plate as he takes a bite of potato salad. Enough of a breach of decorum to be a protest, but not enough to make anyone else question it. Ronan might not have to kill him after all. 

Helen smiles. “Oh, is it that young girl who came in the helicopter with us? She seems feisty, I like her.” 

Gansey chokes. Helen gives him a concerned look.

“No,” Ronan says. “She’s cool, but she’s not my type.” 

“Well,” Declan says. “Whoever she is, I hope to meet her when I’m up next weekend for church.” 

Ronan thinks for a second and very carefully says, “You’ve already met _them_ , actually.” 

Declan frowns, but doesn’t push the issue. Ronan knows that it’s because Helen is there, that he can’t bear to drag out their family drama in front of her. Not that Ronan cares, it’s Declan who started it, as always. If he doesn’t want shit answers he shouldn’t ask shit questions. 

After a few moments of animosity laced silence Helen asks Gansey what he had been saying about Malory and Ronan’s possible love life isn’t brought up again. On the way home Gansey gives him several pointed looks, but he’s too polite to ask and Ronan doesn’t offer.

* * *

Adam wakes up early for a Sunday and dresses in his school slacks and the button up shirt with the least amount of wrinkles. At nine on the dot there’s a knock on Adam’s door and Ronan is on the other side of it. He looks Adam up and down and nods approvingly before coming in.

“I brought you this,” he says, holding up a thin tie with slanted stripes in three shades of grey. 

“Something wrong with my tie, Lynch?” Adam asks as he closes the door. 

“Your tie is fine,” Ronan says, as he buttons Adam’s top button and drapes the grey tie over his neck. “It’s just more formal than this really calls for.” 

“I didn’t know ties had levels.” 

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot you don’t know about clothing.” 

Adam rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. It’s a bit hilarious, getting a lecture on clothing from someone who goes from his school uniform to artfully torn jeans and muscle tees with little in between. He’d laugh if Ronan wasn’t standing so close to him, breath ghosting down his chin as he leans over to fix Adam’s collar now that the tie has been knotted and tightened. 

“I know how to tie a tie,” Adam says. “I’m the one of us who regularly shows up to school dressed the way he should be.” 

Ronan takes a step back and looks Adam over again, distracted. “Uh-huh. You good to go?”

“Yeah,” Adam says. “Let me just—” He toes on his battered loafers and follows Ronan out.

Adam’s lived over St. Agnes for months, but he’s never been to mass. Sure, he’s been inside of the church—usually checking in on Ronan when he’s trying to drink himself to forgetfulness and that one night they still don’t talk about—but he’s never used it for its intended purpose. He doesn’t think, anyway. He hadn’t been raised with any sort of religion, so churches might as well be foreign countries. If he had a passport he’d consider getting it stamped. 

This morning he thinks he’s still not venturing into St. Agnes’s sanctuary for the reasons everyone else is. Truth is, he’s not sure why he’s going at all. Something about the trip to DC had shaken Ronan and the hesitant way he’d asked Adam to attend service with him had tugged pleasantly at Adam’s stomach. A lot of what Ronan does has been tugging pleasantly at different parts of Adam for months now, but he doesn’t really let himself dwell on it. Instead he reciprocates on this unknown bit of pleasure by cutting Ronan slack he wouldn’t have before and saying yes to his stupid ideas. 

The two of them stand at the bottom of the sanctuary steps to wait for Declan and Matthew. As people mingle around them they come up to greet Ronan and ask him about his school work and his brothers. Ronan answers politely, if perfunctorily, and Adam can’t help staring because it’s such a fascinating new development. There are, it seems, endless sides to Ronan Lynch. A few of the churchgoers turn to Adam and ask to be introduced which is a bit awkward, mainly because every time Ronan turns around he finds Adam watching him with bald curiosity. If Ronan thinks this is strange he doesn’t indicate so, which is also fascinating. 

A few minutes before the service is set to start Matthew comes running up to them. He takes one look at Adam and grins hugely. “Oh, it’s you! He didn’t say. I’m glad, I like you.” 

“I like you too,” Adam says, a bit bewildered. But he bumps Matthew’s proffered fist and smiles in spite of himself. He looks to Ronan, but Ronan is too busy watching Declan come up the walk. There’s a smirk firmly placed on his lips that Adam knows means trouble. 

Declan comes to a stop behind Matthew and stands straight and rigid, looking Adam up and down. Where Ronan’s earlier assessment had made Adam feel worthy, Declan’s does the opposite. 

Adam fidgets a bit and puts his hands into his pockets. “Declan.” 

“Adam,” Declan says. It sounds like a guess, like Declan is trying it out and he doesn’t like the taste of it. 

Adam looks at Ronan to see if he’s going to get any indication of what this is about, but Ronan is too busy looking at Declan over Matthew’s head, eyebrow raised slightly in a silent challenge. “We should be going in,” he says. 

“I want to sit next to Adam.” Matthew flings an arm over Adam’s shoulders and turns him toward the church. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what to do.” 

“Thanks,” Adam says. When he looks back to see if Ronan and Declan are following they’re standing ten feet apart and sharing looks that might as well be a fist fight. Adam wonders if he even wants to know what he’s stepped into now.

* * *

Ronan has been avoiding his voice mail for two days. It’s not any different than the way he usually treats his voice mail, but usually Declan hasn’t left him fifteen messages in escalating states of annoyance over a two day period. He tells himself that he’ll call Declan back, he just has to do this first. He takes a deep breath and knocks on Adam’s door.

When Adam answers he’s shirtless with damp, messy hair and a pair of sweatpants hanging low on his hips. It makes Ronan rethink his entire life. He doesn’t know whether to curse or praise every stupid decision he’s made that brought him to this moment and this painfully attractive boy. He wants to stare. He wants to touch. Instead he looks over Adam’s shoulder and puts his hand against the door frame. 

“Can I come in?” he says, voice tight with his effort to control it and his thoughts. 

“Sure,” Adam says. He backs away and pulls the door open wider to let Ronan through. Ronan closes it behind him as Adam crawls back into his bed with his History text. 

Ronan has been in this room a hundred times. He’s slept in it and studied in it and argued in it, lived in it more than he’s lived in a lot of places. And still, he never gets used to the gravity in it, the way it seems impossible to hang on the edges with Adam in the center. It’s not a problem he has in any other place. At least, he doesn’t think so. With Adam around it’s impossible to tell. 

Adam looks up at him and patiently waits for Ronan to say something, probably too tired to do anything else. Ronan thinks that if he really cared about Adam he’d leave him alone more often, let him just get on with his life. Instead Ronan gives in to his selfish need to be near him whenever he pleases, which has to be more about lust than any actual emotion. It’s certainly the thing that’s sitting closest to the surface at the moment. He runs his hand over his head. 

“About Sunday,” he says. 

“About that,” Adam drawls. “I saw Matthew at school today.”

“What? You didn’t say anything.” 

Adam closes the book and draws one of his knees up. He rests his chin on it and looks at Ronan thoughtfully. “There didn’t seem to be a good time to be alone.” 

Which is true. They are hardly ever alone unless they’re here or at the Barns. “I’m sorry,” Ronan says. “I should have told you.” 

“That you told your brothers we were dating? Yeah, a heads up would have been nice.” 

“I,” Ronan starts. “You’re not angry?”

“I’m confused, but I’m not angry. Look, I know that whatever you and Declan have is contentious and I know you say stupid things if there’s no one there to keep you from doing it.” 

“Hey!” 

Adam rolls his eyes. “Give me one time that hasn’t been true.”

“Gansey was there!” 

Adam sits up straighter, alert. “Wait, does Gansey think we’re together?” 

Ronan looks down at his feet and kicks lightly at the baseboard with the back of his boot. “No, I didn’t name a person at lunch when I said it. Gansey thinks I was just going to coast on Declan not knowing, I’m sure.” 

Adam lets out a sigh of relief and Ronan feels a pang at the idea that dating him would be somehow undesirable. Though, he supposes it’s less about him in particular and more about boys in general, which Ronan can’t fault Adam for. It’s not his fault he’s not attracted to Ronan anymore than it’s Ronan’s fault that he’s attracted to Adam. He thinks, probably. 

“Anyway,” Ronan says, letting some harshness creep into his voice to steel himself. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore. I’ll tell them.” 

“Matthew gave me a hug,” Adam says. 

“He what?” 

“He’s really happy for you, you shithead.”

Ronan crosses his arms. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty you don’t need to. I do enough of that on my own.” 

“I know,” Adam says softly. He wraps his arms around his shin and settles his chin back down to his knee. “I’m just saying. If whatever this is, this latest tiff with Declan, if it’s important to you I don’t mind what they think.” 

“Wait. Really?” Suddenly Ronan wants to hug Adam too, which is quite different from the ways he usually wants to reach out touch him. Everything about this is confusing. 

“Sure,” Adam says. “It’s not like it matters. Declan doesn’t live here, we don’t actually have to be dating. We’re together all of the time anyway.”

To Ronan’s ear there’s a hopeful hitch at the end of that sentence, but he’s sure he’s making it up. “Um, thank you?”

“You know, there were probably easier ways to come out to your brother. And the rest of us.” 

“Not the rest of you,” Ronan says. “Just you.” 

That simple truth hangs in the air. It’s Adam, just Adam. Gansey doesn’t know. Noah might know, but he hasn’t said it out loud. Adam tilts his head and looks at Ronan like he’s working a complicated bit of Latin. There’s something about the gaze that makes Ronan’s cheeks go warm. 

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it. His back pocket buzzes and he groans and pulls the phone out. Declan again. “No offense, Parrish,” he says. “But you don’t know my brother.” 

“True,” Adam says. “I know you, though. It’s unlike you not to stare down the beast head on.” 

_Maybe I am_ , Ronan thinks. “I have to take this or Declan’s gonna drive down here and do it in person.” 

“Night, Lynch.” Adam waves his hand to dismiss him and it’s such a careless, intimate gesture that Ronan doesn’t know how to respond to it. 

He grunts a goodbye and lets himself out. Ronan makes it down to the parking lot before pulling out his phone and dialing Declan. He might as well get this over with. He finds himself somehow more fortified to the task than he thought he would be and he feels like he owes Adam more than Adam can ever be allowed to know.

* * *

Monmouth is eerily quiet in the low evening light. Ronan has headed to the Barns for the weekend and taken Chainsaw with him. Blue is working and Noah had blinked out when Ronan left and not made so much as a peep in the last hour. So it’s just Adam and Gansey with their heads bent together, flipping through books of lore.

Adam gets up to get another can of soda from the bathroom and when he comes back Gansey has the book closed in his lap and he’s looking up at him expectantly. It makes Adam feel incredibly self-conscious. “Yes? Do you want one too?”

Gansey doesn’t answer immediately so Adam ambles back over and sits in his same dusty spot on the floor while Gansey watches him. Finally, Gansey says, “Declan called me.”

“That’s interesting,” Adam says, even though it isn’t. He pulls the book from Gansey’s lap and opens it to try and make himself look busy. 

“He called me because Ronan wouldn’t call him back.”

Adam flips a few more pages, not paying any attention to what he’s passing. “That does sound like Ronan. Declan knows he doesn’t do phones. I don’t know what he was expecting.” 

“He was expecting Ronan to explain you, and since Ronan wouldn’t he called me. I guess as the second foremost expert on Adam Parrish?” 

“Probably more as the first foremost expert on Ronan Lynch, I would think.” 

“Am I?” Gansey asks.

Adam looks up finally and meets his gaze. “What?”

“Declan said—”

“Declan said that Ronan told him I was his boyfriend.” The word feels strange in his mouth, but not altogether out of place. He can feel the flush starting in his neck. 

“And?” Gansey says. 

“And what?”

“Either Ronan is lying to Declan or the two of you are lying to me.” He worries at his lower lip with his teeth and then smooths it out with his thumb. 

_Oh_ , Adam thinks. “No, Ronan and I are not lying to you. We’re not together. Well, together together. We’re kind of together all of the time, but that’s different.”

Gansey nods. “Cabeswater stuff. But you’re both lying to Declan.” 

Adam closes the book in frustration. “I don’t even really know Declan, but what Ronan has between his brothers is none of my business.” 

“It is when he puts you in the middle of it. You’re not even curious about why he chose you?”

Adam is, but he’s not about to say that out loud to Gansey. Not until he can work out why. “Gansey, what is it, really?”

Gansey takes a breath and looks down at the book in Adam’s lap. “I just. I didn’t know. About Ronan, I mean. I feel like a bad friend. I should have noticed. I’ve been so preoccupied with,” he trails off and raises his arms up to indicate the whole of Monmouth. “All of this. I feel now like all that shit with Kavinsky should have meant something else to me. And. I guess it doesn’t matter?” He shakes his head and looks up, coming to the conclusion he’s been reaching for. “It doesn’t matter. Why didn’t he tell me if it doesn’t matter?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell any of us.” Adam wonders if Kavinsky knew and feels a sharp twist in his gut at the thought of Kavinsky having parts of Ronan that they didn’t. He had felt there was something else going on with Kavinsky the whole time, but Ronan didn’t offer and Adam didn’t ask. He wonders if he had if it would have made a difference for either of them. 

“He told you,” Gansey says.

“Not until after Matthew told me and I asked him about it. It’s possible Ronan was never going to tell me.” _He was just going to use me as a familiar body_ , Adam thinks. He doesn’t like the way that sits in his mind at all. “Listen, you know Ronan is bad at words. He’s never been able to say things. He has to do things. And if this was the way that he had to assert himself, this way that’s not hurting anyone else, then why not just let him?”

“Is that why you’re going along with it?”

Why is Adam going along with it? What does he want? It’s a question he asks himself all of the time in a mad attempt to keep himself on some sort of track, to keep his goals in sight. But this, this playing pretend feels like something he wants and he’s not sure what that says about Ronan or their friendship. “For the most part,” he decides. 

Gansey nods, accepting that. Adam feels a sudden swell of appreciation for Gansey. He never thought he’d have someone who cared enough about him to worry the way Gansey worries about everyone in their group. Gansey, who is just as lost and young as the rest of them, even though it’s easy to forget. 

Gansey’s phone chirps and he gets up to collect it from the desk. He reads it and chuckles. “Matthew wants to know if you and Ronan will see a movie with him on Sunday when Ronan gets back.” 

“Like a date?” Adam says. 

Gansey smirks. “It doesn’t say that since I guess I’m not supposed to know, but yes Adam, like a date. With your boyfriend.” 

“This is the exact reason no one told you,” he complains, but the word boyfriend is still there and it still doesn’t make Adam as anxious as he thinks it maybe should.

* * *

Adam is coming from work so the plan is for him to meet them at Henrietta’s small two screen theater. Ronan has sent Matthew in to save seats even though it’s not really necessary. He just wants to be able to negotiate the evening in case Adam feels the need to. They haven’t really talked yet about how far they’re going to take this. In fact, they’ve been avoiding talking about it, even when they’re alone. Especially when they’re alone. Adam and Ronan have somehow only come to exist as a unit, an ampersand, while in the company of others. It’s exactly the opposite of the way Ronan would have chosen to be with Adam if he’d ever gotten up the courage to do it for real.

Not that it matters now, no amount of courage in the world is going to convince Adam he wants to be with Ronan for real after this charade is through. In his vindictiveness, Ronan has blown his chance, which is exactly par for the course for him. As he waits outside of the box office with its bright, racing lights he resolves to get as much as he can out of the next couple of weeks and then bury his attraction down deep for the rest of forever. He’s leaning against a pole with his hands in his pockets when Adam trudges in from the parking lot with his eyes to the concrete. 

Ronan wants to be the kind of person who would feel bad for pulling Adam away from his routine and his sleep, but the simple truth is he isn’t. He not-at-all-secretly thinks Adam is wasting his life working it away and that he needs to spend more time doing things for fun. Of course, Adam grouses at the very concept of this whenever Ronan brings it up, cites Ronan’s privilege and wealth and his formerly healthy home and a whole myriad of things Ronan himself can’t help and probably wouldn’t if he could. He would help Adam, does in all of the small ways he can without drawing too much notice to himself. He keeps his eyes open for other ways to do it. This, he tells himself, is one of those. There’s no reason their deception shouldn’t come with perks for Adam as well, and if anyone deserves to shut his brain off and see a god damn movie every once in a while, it’s Adam Parrish.

“Hey,” Adam says, stepping up to the curb in front of Ronan. He ducks his head self-consciously as he looks around. An expression that Ronan can’t interpret slides across Adam’s face, which is strange in itself, because they’ve gotten pretty good at speaking their own language since Adam gave himself to Cabeswater. “Where is Matthew?”

“He’s inside,” Ronan says. “Why? You think I would trick you into having some fun for once, Parrish? No trust.” 

He turns away before Adam can answer, but still hears him mumble, “this whole thing is a trick.” 

A surge of frustration runs along Ronan’s spine and up into the base of his skull. He clenches his teeth, but doesn’t respond. He merely purchases two tickets to the street racing movie and holds the door open for Adam to walk through. Adam gives him another strange look as he passes, but doesn’t say anything else except to order the drink and popcorn Ronan insists he get. 

From the back of the theater Matthew’s golden curls are easy to pick out about halfway down the gently sloping rows. They join him and the look on his face when he greets Adam completely untangles the knot forming in Ronan’s stomach. He tells himself that Matthew is his, so of course Matthew is going to be happy for whatever seemingly makes Ronan happy, but he knows it’s not just that. Matthew is an excellent judge of character and always has been, probably because so much of what he is is what Ronan wants to be. He can tell without any interference from Ronan that Adam is good, not just for Ronan but in general. 

Adam is a good person. It’s not like that’s a secret, but Adam so rarely believes it about himself that it’s a whole other kind of magic watching Matthew’s effusive joy reflect off of Adam’s typically tightly drawn features. His face loosens as he unstitches his constantly worried brow. His whole body loosens. He gives Matthew easy smiles Ronan would kill to evoke on his own. 

It takes a moment before Ronan realizes that both Matthew and Adam have sat down and are looking up at him expectantly. “What?” he says.

“Are you going to join us?” Matthew asks, his lips curling into a smirk that looks entirely too much like Declan for comfort. “Or are you going to stand in the aisle the whole movie?” 

“I don’t know,” Ronan says. “Plenty of room out here, don’t have to worry about Parrish’s sharp fucking elbows.” 

“You wouldn’t’ve had to worry about them that one time either, if you hadn’t flat out tackled me,” Adam says. He’s smirking as well now and Ronan doesn’t know whether he loves his shithead brother or his shithead fake boyfriend more. He hands the popcorn to Adam and settles in on the other side of him, jostling his elbow in a move that turns into a short, fake fight with both Matthew and Adam laughing until the previews start and they have to settle down. 

Ronan lets Adam hold onto the popcorn, since he is no doubt the hungrier of the two of them. Their hands brush a couple of times, fingers coated in butter and salt, and Ronan very carefully does not look away from the screen when it happens. He can see Adam peering at him out of the corner of his eye, though. Ronan leans onto his elbow against the empty armrest on the other side of him, but he leaves his hand on the rest between them. About thirty minutes into the movie Adam leans in a little and places his hand on top of Ronan’s. Ten minutes after that Adam is absentmindedly playing with the leather bands around Ronan’s wrist and it is incredibly distracting in the most pleasant of ways. 

The current thrumming in Ronan’s bones is a little crazy to him, because he and Adam touch all of the time. They touch when they’re working on schoolwork, helping Cabeswater, sharing food, fake fighting, and real fighting. They are a teasing dance of elbows and knees and fingers and hips. Hardly any of it ever feels this charged and expectant. Possibly because this is the first time Ronan has asked to be touched, as wordless as the question was, and it’s definitely the first time Adam has knowingly acknowledged the difference. If this is what fake dating Adam Parrish is like then Ronan’s almost okay with the idea that he will never get to have him for real. Thinking he could keep this, knowing he could have permission to press his skin to Adam’s any time he wants and then spending so much time not doing it because of the tedium of daily life might kill him. 

On screen the male and female leads are kissing and Adam has twisted Ronan’s arm sideways on the rest and is running his finger up the inside of Ronan’s forearm from his wrist to his elbow. The touch is feather light. Every hair on Ronan’s body is standing up. It tickles and he tries not to jerk away, doesn’t want to be the reason it stops. When he hazards a look over Adam is engrossed in what’s happening on the screen. 

The man and woman have just broken off their kiss. Their faces are an inch or so apart, breath heavy between them, mouths open like they’re frustrated they can’t just devour each other whole. For the first time in his life Ronan thinks he understands what scenes like this have been trying to make him feel all along. 

There’s an explosion in the distance and they break apart to run toward it. Adam pulls his hand away and Ronan resists the urge to chase it and hold onto it. He wants to lick the popcorn salt from Adam’s fingers, which he thinks should probably be a mildly disgusting thought given he knows exactly where Adam’s hands have been, and yet. Ronan stays just as he is through the rest of the film, even as Adam and Matthew rock in their seats with laughter and anticipation, but Adam keeps his hand to himself for the rest of the movie. 

As the credits roll Matthew practically hops over the two of them to get to the restroom. Adam stands and stretches, the tail of his shirt lifting so that Ronan can see the smooth skin and small dimples of his lower back. Adam bends down to pick up the discarded popcorn tub and Ronan looks away. He collects the cups and takes them to the trash can outside of the theater door where he waits for Adam to catch up. When he does he looks beat, but relatively pleased about it. 

“That was fun,” he says, stifling a yawn. 

“So fun it put you to sleep, huh?” Ronan shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket to keep himself from reaching out and doing anything stupid. Together they drift out to the main lobby and wait for Matthew. 

Once they’ve collected him, Matthew pilfers the car keys from Ronan’s pocket without asking and holds his fist out for Adam. “It was really good to see you,” he says.

Adam brushes his knuckles against Matthew’s and smiles. “You too.” 

Then, with a wink, Matthew turns and bounces out of the theater. 

“He’s not leaving you here, is he?” Adam asks. He sounds amused, which is a good sign. 

“I hope not,” Ronan says, eyes searching the low ceiling for water damage. “But I think uh, he thinks I should walk you to your car.”

“Oh,” Adam says quietly. “I guess it would be the gentlemanly thing to do.” 

“Since when have I been a gentleman?” Ronan scoffs. “Impossible standards like these are the reason I’m just going to be alone forever.” 

Adam chokes out a laugh. “Yes,” he says. “Those are the reasons.”

When Ronan can force himself to look at Adam’s face he’s got his head tilted a little and his eyes are bright, matching his smug grin. “Asshole,” Ronan mutters, and starts for the door. 

The Hondayota is a few aisles over from the BMW, but Ronan is sure Matthew can see them as they stand awkwardly near the driver’s side door. Adam is talking about schoolwork or something. Ronan’s trying to listen, he really is, but the way the blue of the dim streetlight is hitting Adam’s hair is creating a halo that seems to fizzle with energy. Ronan wants to touch it. So he does. 

At first nothing changes. Adam keeps talking, even as Ronan’s hand is reaching for his hair, but once Ronan pushes one of the longer clumps away from his eyes Adam stops. He’s looking at Ronan in a way that Ronan can’t understand again and it drives Ronan nuts that this is happening now. They’re the greywaren and the magician, they should be damn near telepathic at this point. What does that look mean? It’s going to eat away at Ronan for the rest of the night. He trails the tips of his fingers up into the reflection of the blue light at Adam’s crown briefly and then back down until he has his palm flat against Adam’s cheek. 

“Lynch?” Adam says. There’s a note of warning in his voice. 

Ronan is stuck here, caught on a precipice of what he should do and what he wants to do. He’s come this far and nothing terrible has happened. What if he just goes a little bit farther? He leans forward. 

“ _Ronan_ ,” Adam says, and then anything else he was going to say is lost in the rapidly closing space between their lips. 

Adam is stiff under Ronan’s hands and mouth. Ronan presses against him, runs his lips down to Adam’s chin and back. Adam brings his hands up to Ronan’s shoulders, takes a step backward so that he can lean into the car, and then he _kisses Ronan back_. It’s short lived, but it’s more than Ronan had ever hoped for. They cautiously test each other with their lips and when Ronan feels like he could drown in this he presses closer, opens wider. There’s a brief flick of Adam’s tongue and then Adam is closing his lips off. 

He says Ronan’s name again and Ronan pulls back, mouth open and breathing heavy. He thinks of the screen kiss. He thinks of Adam’s fingers drawing figure eights on the inside of his wrist, a small promise of infinity against his pulse. He thinks he can tell the exact moment when the light in Adam’s eyes goes out. 

Ronan takes a step back and pulls his hands away as if Adam has suddenly become white hot. “I’m, I’m so s—”

Adam holds his hand up and then drops it onto Ronan’s shoulder. He runs the other through his hair, letting it fall back into his face and making it as if Ronan’s hands had never been there. 

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t become a liar for my benefit.” 

And that stings, but it’s true. Ronan isn’t sorry. He’s sorry he’s overstepped his boundaries maybe, for how uncomfortable Adam seems to be, but he’s not sorry he kissed him. He’s not sorry he’s been wanting to kiss Adam for almost a year now. He realizes, really and truly for the first time, how so very not sorry he is about it. He doesn’t trust himself to speak without making it worse. He takes a step back and shakes Adam’s hand off his shoulder. 

Adam looks down at his own empty palm as if it’s a part of the tarot, as if it’s as inscrutable as the looks he’s been giving Ronan. “I’ll uh, see you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah, Parrish,” Ronan says, trying to keep the venom he can feel filling the wounds in his pride in desperate check, and almost succeeding. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

He turns on his heel to head back to his car, carefully settling his face into something neutral he hopes Matthew won’t question. It’s a little less than pleased to have gotten a goodnight kiss and a lot more than disappointed to have just ruined one of the few friendships he really values. He considers suddenly coming down with a cold so he doesn’t have to see Adam tomorrow. He’s not sure he’ll be able to handle it.

* * *

When Adam gets home from the movie he feels strung out. His mind is a tumult, which should be a thing he’s used to by now but instead of it being a mixture of real life and Cabeswater it’s all Ronan. Ronan holding the door open. Ronan’s fingers brushing his in the popcorn tub. Ronan’s hand under his. Ronan’s stupid bracelets. Ronan’s soft inner arm under his fingertips. Ronan’s lips. Ronan’s tongue.

He paces back and forth along the edge of his mattress. _Why?_ Why had he spent so much of the movie touching Ronan? He hadn’t even been thinking about it really, his fingers just had a mind of their own. One minute he was watching the movie, the next minute he was keeping his eyes front while relishing in the warmth and softness of Ronan’s skin. It had taken everything in him to finally pull away and stay away. 

It’s not a mystery to him at all why Ronan kissed him. Okay, it’s a small mystery why Ronan would even want to kiss _him_ , but it makes perfect sense. They’re supposed to be together. They had an audience of sorts. Ronan probably did want to kiss a boy finally and he was a safe person to get that out of the way with. Adam thinks it must have been finally anyway, he doesn’t know. He thinks about Kavinsky again and feels sick, so he pushes it away. The thing Adam keeps coming back to is this: his first kiss was with Ronan Lynch and he wants to kiss Ronan Lynch again.

“God, you’re hopeless,” he says to himself. He flops down on his mattress and tries really hard not to think about all of the times that Ronan has been on this same mattress, the heat of him seeping into the sheets. He should sleep. He closes his eyes tight and tries to will himself tired, even though the overhead light is still on. He can’t seem to do it. 

There is another will, working its way up from the pit of his stomach and he bites down on his tongue. “No,” he tells himself. “No, you are not going to masturbate if you can’t stop thinking about your friend. Stop being weird.” 

He can’t stop being weird. He can’t even bring himself to feel guilty about it. He rolls over onto his stomach and counts to ten. He needs to get out. He needs to say all of this out loud to someone so he knows he’s not going crazy. He can’t call Gansey, because Gansey is at Monmouth with Ronan and Ronan will know something is up. 

“Noah?” he says to the empty apartment. He waits for a few minutes, but the boy doesn’t appear. Adam sighs and pushes himself up. 

He sneaks down to the church office and calls Blue. He knows it’s late, but with all the people in that house there are good odds someone will answer. It’s The Gray Man who finally picks up on the tenth ring. “Hello?”

He exhales shakily. “Good evening, Mr. Gray. I was wondering, can Blue come to the phone?”

“Who is this? Adam?”

“Yes sir,” Adam says, unable to be impolite to adults even when they are murderers. He is learning so many things about himself tonight. 

The Gray Man asks him to hold on and then it’s a minute or so before Blue finally picks up the receiver. “Adam?” she says. “Is everything okay.” 

_No_ , he thinks. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just, I need to talk about something and I didn’t know who else to call.” 

“Sure,” Blue says, with no hesitation. “What is it?”

“Can I come over?” 

By the time Adam is pulling up to 300 Fox Way it’s nearly eleven. Maura greets him at the door in cotton pants and a bathrobe but doesn’t say anything about the time. “Do you want something to drink, dear?” she says. 

Adam shakes his head, knowing exactly the sort of thing he’s likely to get. Blue meets him at the bottom of the stairs and leads him out into the back yard. It’s cold, but Adam hopes that maybe it will have the same effect as a cold shower. He thinks about showering. He thinks about Ronan. He tries to stop thinking altogether. 

They sit opposite one another at the base of the tree and look up through its branches for a few minutes before Blue yawns and says, “What happened?”

Adam takes a deep breath and forces himself to look her in the eye. “Ronan kissed me.” 

Blue takes this in with no trouble at all. It feels like it’s something she’s been waiting to hear for a while and Adam doesn’t know whether to be comforted or alarmed by this. “And did you kiss him back?” she asks carefully. 

Adam nods. “Only for a few seconds. Then I sort of just realized what I was doing and stopped.” 

“You know it’s okay, right?” she says. 

Adam is confused by that for a moment, because none of this is okay, but he realizes that she means it’s okay for him to like boys and that feels silly. “Of course that’s okay,” he says. “It’s not. It’s not because he’s a him, it’s because he’s _Ronan_.”

“That’s okay too,” she says. 

“How?” Adam can feel the grimace that’s settled into his lips and he wants to smooth it away, but he can’t work out how. “He probably didn’t even mean it. It’s this whole stupid fake boyfriend thing he has going on for Declan. How am I supposed to know if he even meant it? God, I feel so dumb.” 

“You could ask him,” she says, ever sensible. 

Adam shoots her the most miserable look he can muster.

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head as if put upon. “Declan wasn’t there, was he?”

“No, just Matthew.”

Blue plays with the ends of her hair and studies him. “You’re thinking about this too hard. It’s fine. It’s Ronan and it’s fine. When have you ever known Ronan to do something he didn’t want to?” 

And that was true enough. He thinks about the look on Ronan’s face as he backed away. Adam had been so lost in the feeling of the moment and his immediate freak out that he hadn’t stopped to really take Ronan into account at all. Not Ronan the person, anyway. It was, as it usually was in Adam’s mind, Ronan the constructed entity that Adam didn’t know what to do with. The Ronan who was sharp and slick and sometimes cruel. The outer Ronan protecting the other parts of him that Adam knew about but could never seem to reconcile. The Ronan who had closed in on himself in the movie theater parking lot because he was afraid of Adam Parrish. 

It feels ridiculous when Adam thinks it, but it also feels true. “What do I do?” 

“I don’t know,” she says. “What do you want to do?” 

They settle back into a contemplative silence that’s only broken when Maura sticks her head out the back door to tell them it’s midnight. Adam pushes himself up and wipes off the back of his jeans. 

“Hey, thanks,” he says. “I know that. You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to.” He can’t seem to make words work, to get the whole thought out. Jesus, maybe Ronan is catching. 

Blue understands anyway. “I know, but we’re still friends, right? And besides. Maybe if you can keep Ronan preoccupied he’ll stop taking up so much of my time.” It’s fake annoyance he knows. Blue and Ronan are too much alike to not be there for each other in their weird, argumentative way.

“Blue Sargent, I could kiss you.” 

“Just as long as you don’t,” she says, but she smiles up at him and he knows it’s okay.

* * *

Ronan survives Monday, but he thinks it might only be by the skin of his teeth. He’s exhausted, not having gotten much sleep the night before, even relative to the near to no sleep he's used to running on. He instead spent most of the night playing back over Adam’s hands and the small way he’d curled into Ronan when he’d finally kissed him back. In his mind he can tease the kiss out as long as he wants to and in his dream, when he finally dreams, it goes just a little bit further. In his dream he skirts his hand up under Adam’s shirt and runs his fingers across those dimples on his lower back. In his dream Adam wraps his arms around Ronan’s neck and holds him there and they just kiss and kiss. During the day he replays the dream over and over while staring in the general directions of blackboards and projectors. Several of his teachers comment on how attentive he is as if it’s a god damned miracle. If only they knew.

At school Adam doesn’t treat him any differently and Ronan can’t tell if he’s pleased or disappointed. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, really. He’s made it very clear what this is. It’s a ruse. It’s fake, except for how it isn’t. Does he really think that he can kiss Adam and Adam will suddenly realize his hidden desire for slender bodied boys? No, not boys, _Ronan himself_. Every other boy can throw themselves into the river, as far as Ronan is concerned. None of them are Adam Parrish. 

Gansey spends the day watching him curiously. Ronan catches him at it several times and raises an eyebrow in question, but Gansey just shakes his head ever so slightly and turns back to whatever he’s doing. At the end of the day Ronan strides through his bedroom door feeling like he’s climbed a mountain and throws himself onto his bed with his face pressed into his pillows. Maybe if he smothers himself he won’t have to think about Adam ever again. 

“So, how was your date?” 

Ronan turns his head sideways to see Gansey leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. He’s wearing his look of discovery, the one he gets when he latches onto an anecdote he’s determined to prove true. 

“You mean the movie? It was great. There were explosions and car chases and a bank heist. We should consider a bank heist. They look like fun.” 

“No makeouts?”

For a moment Ronan’s afraid that Gansey knows somehow and his heart stops. But he can’t. It just happened. And Ronan’s sure he’s not that transparent. Eighty-five percent sure, anyway. “A couple, but they’re always throwing romantic bullshit into movies. And I wasn’t watching them the whole time, but I’m reasonably sure Parrish and my brother did not make out.”

Gansey gives a light, nasal hum. 

Noah appears over his shoulder. “It was your typical cinematic affair, wouldn’t you say, Ronan? Too much lip and not enough heart.”

“How would you know?” Ronan asks. “You weren’t even there.” _I am going to throw you out of all the fucking windows_ , he thinks. He hopes it’s loud enough for Noah to hear.

“Oh, I’m everywhere,” Noah says. He uses two fingers to point to his eyes and then at Ronan, a gesture Ronan reads as _I’d like to see you try_.

“Declan does have my number, Ronan.” 

“That fucking prick,” Ronan spits. He has a sudden bout of deja vu. It’s too much like the period of time between his father’s death and just after his own nightmares tried to kill him when Declan and Gansey had spent all of their time on the phone tag teaming him. He hated it then and he still hates it now. “It wasn’t a fucking date, okay? Matthew just wanted to see the movie with the two of us.” 

“Because you’re a couple,” Gansey says. 

“A couple of assholes,” Noah says.

“We’re _not_ actually, and it doesn’t matter. Declan’s not happy unless he has something to chew on, so I gave the lumbering pitbull something to keep in his teeth.” 

“What about your teeth?” Gansey asks. 

“Empty as always.” As soon as he says it it hits him how true it is, which diminishes his anger some and replaces it with a very familiar melancholy. 

Gansey scratches at his shoulder. “I know you don’t believe this, but Declan only wants what’s best for you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s too late for that.” 

“And _I_ ,” Gansey says pointedly, ignoring the interruption. “Don’t want to see you get hurt over something stupid. This isn’t a street race, Ronan. You can’t just play chicken with people’s feelings. There’s no victor in it.” 

“Parrish is fine with it.”

“I’m not talking about Adam.” 

Another surge of anger flares through Ronan. “I’m a big boy, Gansey. I don’t need you to take care of me.” 

“I know. I know you don’t need me,” Gansey says softly. It feels like a punch to the jaw. 

Ronan opens his mouth to say something he’ll regret later, but Noah beats him to it. “That’s not what he means.” It feels like he’s talking to both of them. 

Gansey shrugs. “For what it’s worth, I think you should tell Adam how you feel.” 

“ _Adam_ knows how I feel.” It might be true. It’s not like Ronan’s been hiding his roving, want-laced eyes for months now. And he has just kissed him. It’s a little hard to explain that away. He thinks that maybe if he’s never alone with Adam again he won’t need to.

“Knowing and hearing are two different things,” Noah says. “Take my word for it.” 

Ronan huffs and presses his face back into the pillow, not even caring if they can make out his muffled voice. “I’m going to throw you both out of a window.” 

“That’s the spirit,” Gansey says. 

Ronan listens to him walk away. He thinks about Adam and sinks back into the slow burning pain that is the memory of Adam’s lips.

* * *

Adam thinks Blue is right. Regardless of his own insecurities Ronan had kissed him. Ronan had also been staring at him for months and insinuating himself into Adam’s life in small ways that felt like they added up to something big. Adam is as sure of this as he is of his place in the Henrietta dust. He’s not stupid. He’s noticed. He’s also noticed the way that makes him feel and that’s part of the problem, because it makes him feel good and worthy and a whole list of other things that he’s been fighting tooth and nail for since the first time his father hit him. This feeling was never supposed to come to him this easy.

It’s too good to be true and too confusing to be real. It’s like the transitional line he’s currently standing at in Cabeswater. At his back there’s a cool breeze rattling the dry leaves across the ground and the tree roots. At his front there’s bright, warm sun beating down onto his face from a wide blue sky. In his past there’s terror and pain and fear. In his future, maybe, there’s stubborn arguments and stupid fights, but also probably soft lips and curious hands and a belief and will so fierce that it can pull his very hopes from its dreams. He shivers as his body tries to make sense of the shift. 

And this is why he hasn’t said anything, even though Blue is probably right. Because he’s afraid to. Because he knows right now that he could go the rest of his life—or at least his time in Henrietta—accepting Ronan’s tentative attentions and being relatively happy with the give and take of their friendship as it is. If he steps forward, if he crosses the line into the sun, it means he’s taking responsibility of what happens there. He’s done a lot of work on himself since he was able to leave his father’s house, but he still doesn’t feel like something that could bloom. He feels desiccated and dry. He feels like meeting the brunt force of Ronan’s want could blow him away entirely. 

Of course, at this very moment he needs to physically step forward, because if they’re going to get to leave Cabeswater by sundown real-world-time then someone really needs to find where Ronan has slunk off to and Gansey has put him on Ronan patrol duty. It’s just as well, Adam thinks he knows where he’s gone and he’s right. 

Aurora is sitting in the grass in the shade at the edge of a copse of trees. She’s reading a book and Ronan is curled on his side in the grass with his head in her lap and his back to Adam’s approach. Aurora spots him coming. She holds a finger up to her lips to ask him to be quiet and then pats at the grass beside her. Adam sits down and crosses his legs. He looks down at Ronan, who is more peaceful than Adam has ever seen him. 

“He gets so little sleep, poor thing,” Aurora says quietly. She closes her book and puts it down beside her. 

Adam notes with some amusement that it’s a battered copy of _The Little Prince_. He wonders if she’d been reading it out loud when Ronan fell asleep. The idea of it is almost too precious to bear. Savage, angry, brutal Ronan Lynch, falling asleep in the sun as his mother reads to him. There’s a swoop in Adam’s chest, like a murmuration diving just to rise again. 

“Was he always like that?” Adam asks. 

She looks down at Ronan and scratches lightly at the nape of his neck with the tips of her nails. “The nightmares weren’t always so bad. Those came after Niall was taken from us, but yes, more or less. Niall was like that too. There’s a difference between sleep and rest for them in the way there’s not for most people.” 

Adam nods. 

“He’s told me about you,” she says. 

“Really?” Adam thinks that Ronan must have much better things to discuss with his mother than him. He wants to know and he doesn’t want to know at the same time. He wonders when every one of this emotions became balanced on the edge of a knife. 

It’s her turn to nod. “He says you live over the church and that it’s easier for him to sleep there.” 

“He’s always welcome to,” Adam says, even though he knows Ronan knows that so he assumes Aurora must. “I know the church is comforting for him.” 

She purses her lips in thought. “Church has never been comforting for Ronan. It’s been a lot of things, because it was an important part of where his father came from, but it’s never been a comfort. You though, I think you are a comfort.” 

Adam looks away. “I don’t see how,” he mutters. He thinks of the leaves and his mouth dries out. “I don’t have anything to offer him. He has to sleep on the floor.” 

“Sometimes places are just places,” Aurora says. “And sometimes people are places.” 

“I’m afraid,” Adam says. Just saying it out loud makes him feel better. It’s like he’s put a small hole in the gathering tie of an over-inflated balloon and just letting the squeak of air out has somehow made the whole thing less likely to explode in his face. 

Aurora reaches over and takes his hand in hers. She brushes the top of it with her thumb a few times and he’s reminded of his own mother and the way she used to run her thumb across his cheek when he was crying. Adam would curl up in her lap if he had the chance to. 

“I wouldn’t trust you with him if you weren’t,” she says. “Fear is normal. Fear is how you know something really matters.” 

“Sometimes fear is just fear.” He knows this from experience, and it only illustrates how different he and Ronan are. There’s no world in which his father matters. There are at least two in which Niall Lynch mattered. 

“You’re so young.” She lets go of his hand, pushes the hair off his forehead, and rests her palm flat against his cheek, just the way Ronan had. 

It hits Adam then just how much Ronan is a culmination of beautiful things trying to manifest themselves. Adam wants to be that, but since he can’t he wants to be close to it. He wants Aurora for a mother and Cabeswater for a home and Ronan for his own. He wants and wants and wants and he knows that he may never bring himself to take, because in the end none of it is for him. 

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” Aurora says, as if she’s read his thoughts. 

Ronan stirs in her lap. His eyes flutter open and he looks up at her with a soft smile on his face. When he notices Adam is there the smile slips and Adam adds another thing to his pile of wants. He wants Ronan to feel comfortable enough around him to use that smile. Or perhaps to give Adam an unguarded smile all his own. 

“Time to go, sleepy head,” he says, and stands up. He walks back toward autumn as Ronan says his goodbye, not wanting to encroach any more than he already has on this private time. 

When Ronan joins him he looks up at Adam through sleep-heavy lids and says, “She wants to tell you goodbye.” 

Adam looks at him dumbly for a minute, but Ronan offers no indication of what he’s thinking. There’s no smirk or sneer, not even a moue. Adam turns back. 

Aurora meets him halfway and gives him a warm, tight hug. “Whatever you decide,” she says. “You can always come see me too, if you need to.” 

Adam squeezes her tight and buries his head in her shoulder for a minute. She’s not his mother, but she’s a mother and in that way of mothers she asks nothing of him in return. It makes him want to be more worthy of her than he is. “Thank you,” he says finally. 

She wipes a tear away from his cheek. “Go on now.” 

Adam turns to see that Ronan has had his back to them in the same careful way that Adam had been avoiding watching mother and son. He bumps Ronan’s shoulder with his own as he passes and they walk back through Cabeswater and its seasons in silence.

* * *

Ronan paces back and forth in the parking lot of St. Agnes. Adam’s car is gone, which means he’s at work, which means he could be back at any point between now and an hour and a half from now. Ronan considers going into the church and sitting in one of the pews, pretending as he always does that his own understanding of God lives there instead of his father’s strict Catholic understanding.

Ronan’s god would never ask for money. Ronan’s god would not make you apologize for the things you couldn’t help. Ronan’s god would have a soft valley accent and calloused hands. When Ronan’s god pulls into the parking lot Ronan is sitting on the deck of his trunk with his forehead pressed to his clasped hands. 

“Thank you,” he breathes. Adam opens the car door and Ronan looks up. 

Adam keeps the car between them as he says, “Do you want to come up?” 

Ronan nods and Adam turns around and starts up the walk. Ronan slides off his trunk and follows. He hasn’t been inside of Adam’s apartment in a little over a week. He feels like something about it should have changed, but it’s all the same as it ever was. Tidy and spare and far too small to contain Adam’s presence. 

Ronan mentally curses the inability of the waking world to reflect proper change when it happens, unlike his dreams which bend to reflect his mood. They’ve been different lately. For one thing Adam talks to him in them now, touches him, instead of looking at him with disdain. 

Adam lets Ronan in first and then closes the door behind them. Ronan stands in the center of the small space and lets himself look at Adam openly for the first time in maybe ever. How long has he been denying himself this? How long has he been appeasing his fear? 

There's that gravity again, tugging Ronan forward, making him feel like the collision is inevitable. Adam leans back against the door and watches Ronan with wary eyes. In some ways it makes Ronan’s decision easier. He hopes that once he clears the air Adam won’t have cause to suspect him of anything anymore. They can go back to the way they were before he started this whole mess. 

“Ro—” Adam starts. 

“No,” Ronan cuts him off. “Let me, because if I don’t now I never will and I have to say it.” 

Adam tilts his head forward slightly. He doesn’t move away from the door. 

“I’m sorry, okay?” Adam looks like he’s about to say something, like he knows how hard that word is for Ronan to force out, but Ronan holds his hands up as if in surrender. He loses some of his courage and addresses Adam’s shoes. “No, just listen, I am sorry. I’m not, oh God, I’m not sorry about the kiss thing, but I’m sorry I put you in that position in the first place. You deserve better from me. Matthew deserves better from me. I’m going to tell him, you don’t have to do anything. I’ll just tell him we broke up and it was my fault. I’m sure Declan will corroborate that. He thinks everything is my fault all the time anyway.” 

“What does Declan think about all of this?” Adam asks. 

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t give a shit what Declan thinks.” 

“I do,” Adam says. 

Ronan looks up again, studies him for a moment and thinks about how much to share. “Declan thinks that I’m wasting my time on dalliances when I should be building a future.” 

Adam winces. Ronan should probably tell Adam that it’s not actually him that Declan disapproves of, but Ronan’s whole life. Declan isn’t, as Ronan had suspected, mad about the boy thing. He’s mad about Ronan’s potential and how it’s being squandered on _provincial pursuits_. But Ronan knows that if he starts down that path he’ll never stop. He’ll lose his resolve, boil it away in his anger, and then Adam will be forced to keep acting as if everything is fine when it is, in fact, horribly broken. 

“Anyway,” he says. “You’re off the hook.” 

Finished, Ronan wants to bolt, but Adam is still leaning against the door and there’s no way out. Unless he goes through the window. Ronan considers whether or not the drop from the window would break anything. Probably not. 

“No,” Adam says. 

Ronan nods, but then he realizes that what Adam has said is very different from what he’d anticipated and stops. “No?”

“No,” Adam says again. “We can’t go back. It’s already impossible.” 

Ronan’s throat and stomach feel coated in lead. He knows this has always been a possibility. Adam’s patient with Ronan, more patient than he has any right to be, but he’s not a saint. Maybe he finally got tired of Ronan’s incessant presence. It’s not hard to imagine. Ronan’s tired of being around himself all of the time. Adam has a much higher Ronan Lynch tolerance than Ronan does. 

“I, uh, that was always a possibility I guess,” Ronan says. “Just try not to make it weird for Gansey and Noah, okay?”

“I can’t promise that.” 

While not exactly fair, that’s not unexpected. He tries to calculate how little time he can possibly spend with Adam over the course of a week. The number of hours is still too large for comfort. Ronan pulls himself up straight, rummages through the realized fear in his gut and musters all of the coldness he can as he says, “Whatever. Can I go?”

“Are you done?”

“Yeah, Parrish. I’m done.” 

“Good,” Adam says. “It’s my turn.” 

"What makes you think you get a say in this?" What Ronan wants to say is, _Why do you even give a shit?_

"You made this about the two of us," Adam says. "You're the one who brought me into it."

He pushes away from the door and comes to a stop less than a foot from Ronan. Ronan can feel the weight of his eyes and it’s so... _pleasant_. He thinks maybe he could be okay with this, if Adam was just willing to maintain the status quo. He could happily be Adam’s friend and fill his other needs elsewhere. Anywhere, so long as Adam keeps looking at him this way. This way he still doesn't understand and can't quite read, but that he might be better for.

“You’re such an idiot,” Adam says. It comes out breath quiet and Ronan doesn’t know which one of them he’s talking to. 

He doesn’t have long to contemplate it though, before Adam is gently clasping Ronan’s neck in his hands and tugging him forward. He presses his forehead to Ronan’s and holds Ronan there against him, hesitating, like he’s stepping into cold water and trying to get used to the sudden chill as it takes over. As they stand there Adam changes in front of him. It’s not physical, not mostly, but Ronan can just tell. Something has slotted into place. He tries not to get his hopes up as Adam’s breath catches in his throat. Adam takes several deep breaths, as if he’s preparing for a dive, and then he tilts Ronan’s head up and kisses him. 

Immediately Ronan places his hands around Adam’s hips, afraid he’ll re-think it and try to duck away. He doesn’t. He presses closer and lets his mouth fall open in invitation. Ronan picks up where they’d left off a week ago, hesitantly pressing his tongue past Adam’s teeth until Adam responds with his own. A muffled, strangled sound comes out of the back of Adam’s throat and Ronan pulls back, afraid he’s done something wrong, still not entirely convinced this isn’t some sort of trick. 

“I’m fine,” Adam says, in response to Ronan’s silent question. He runs the fingers of both hands up the back of Ronan’s head and the way they tug at Ronan’s short hairs as they go produces a pleasant pull of sensation. Every part of Ronan is covered in that sensation, down to the tops of his toes, and he never wants it to stop. 

He does what he's been thinking about since the movie and runs his fingers up under the hem of Adam’s shirt, slides them across Adam’s lower back, lets them linger in the shallow indentations. Adam arches forward slightly, as if Ronan has pulled him, so Ronan does. He pulls Adam closer and they stand like that, staring at each other wide-eyed and breathless. Ronan has always thought giving in to the gravity would make it go away, would let him stabilize, but it doesn't. Giving in to the gravity only makes it stronger. He leans in slowly and kisses Adam again. 

There's a part of Ronan that is standing outside of himself watching this happen and waiting for it to blow up in his face. He's mad at himself for not trusting Adam and he's mad at himself for not trusting his own senses. He presses his lips to Adam’s harder, trying to squash the doubt that's setting in even as Adam answers in kind. Adam slides his hands down again and drapes his arms over Ronan’s shoulders, holding onto Ronan just as tightly as Ronan is holding on to him and it's so much like Ronan’s dream that it throws him off balance. He stops and pulls as far back as Adam’s arms will let him. It's not very far. He can still feel Adam's breath as it tickles down his chest. This time when Adam makes a sound it is very clearly one of frustration. 

Ronan raises an eyebrow at him. Adam doesn't know anything about frustration. Adam's not the one who's been silently sleeping next to the boy he might be in love with for months. Adam's not the one who has followed Ronan with his eyes, who has dreamed him up a hundred times, trying to figure out what to say and failing each and every time. Adam’s not the one with fear and pleasure warring in his chest whenever Ronan looks at him in class or in the car or in their forest. _Their forest_. 

At least, Ronan thinks he's not.

Finally, knowing full well that he might ruin it, Ronan gathers the courage to say, "Why?" _Why now? Why me? Why this?_

"It just is, right?" Adam says. "It's us. It feels...it feels like too much and I'm greedy."

They're barely thoughts let alone sentences, but Ronan understands anyway. It just is. To him it feels like it’s always been. To Adam maybe it's growing, but that's okay too. Everything Ronan has ever grabbed has had to start as a small thought somewhere. 

"You should be sorry, though," he says.

It knocks Ronan sideways. "What?" 

"Fake dating. Of all the terrible romantic comedy plots you could have pulled from." He's grinning and Ronan settles back into himself. 

"Well I would have asked if you wanted to rob a bank together, but that seemed extreme."

"Would still have upset Declan, though."

"Hey, Parrish, you wanna rob a bank?" 

Adam tilts his head back, thinking. "I don't think the suspension on the BMW could handle pulling the vault during the chase."

"You're the god damn magician. You figure it out."

"Only if you promise to tell me the next time you involve me in one of your stupid ideas."

"I'm telling you right now, aren't I?"

Adam presses his forehead to Ronan’s again. Ronan thinks he's probably still getting used to this, which is fine. Ronan is too, and he's sure he's been thinking about it for much longer. 

"Yeah," Adam says, voice low. It travels down Ronan’s spine and settles into him, pools outward and makes him feel loose like he hasn't felt in years. He closes his eyes and catalogues everything he can about the moment: the weight of Adam against him, the sound of their mingled breathing, the warmth where they’re touching. 

When he opens them again Adam is still there, still everywhere, holding tight. Not a dream thing, but fitting too well for either of them to have been meant for anything else.


End file.
